


Easter

by Ignicula



Category: God Eater (Video Games), God Eater 3
Genre: Easter, Easter Egg Hunt, Easter Eggs, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23626510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ignicula/pseuds/Ignicula
Summary: While the rest of the Chrysanthemum's crew is hard at work, Claire celebrates Easter with Phym.
Kudos: 11





	Easter

**Author's Note:**

> Barely made it before midnight - it still counts as on time for Easter. I hope you all enjoy!

Claire Victorious had, once upon a time, been a very privileged child. After becoming a God Eater of Gleipnir and later of The Hounds, she’d wound up living with a lot fewer of the privileges she’d had in her youth, but memories of that childhood still remained.

Memories, for instance, like those of the holidays spent with her friends. Certainly more than a few holidays had been lost to time outside of an obscure mention. Thanks to that, she had no names to put to them. Thanks to Luca and the discovery of Bugarally, one at least had been uncovered once more. 

There was, however, another holiday that everyone seemed to be forgetting, one that Claire had the fondest memories of being a part of as a child. Unfortunately, even though the day had arrived, no one seemed to be able to celebrate it like she’d secretly hoped for.

_ Luca, Hugo, Neal, and Zeke are out on a mission. Hilda has important business to attend to regarding the Chrysanthemum, Ein… no, Souma and Keith have locked themselves in Keith’s lab to work on the Adaptive Armor some more, Amy is busy recording the mission while Ricardo is on standby, and Lulu is off… doing something. _

The other girl had been strangely vague about what she was doing, but it had seemed important enough that Claire didn’t want to disturb her from it.

Which, of course, left her and Phym.

“Claire, do you think Daddy will come back soon?” Phym asks, seeming distressed. 

_ Ah, so it’s one of those days.  _

Phym seemed to be picking up on a lot of her father’s bad habits… and being a duckling who got depressed every time the person they followed around everywhere disappeared seemed to be a trait he was  _ also  _ passing on. While admittedly it was adorable, it was also not something that was good for the development of a child, and Claire hoped to nip it in the bud by making sure Phym wasn’t too overly dependent on anyone… Though this usually led to her just spoiling the child until she forgot.

Arguably that strategy was even  _ worse  _ for the development of a child, but when confronted with Phym she couldn’t help herself. Neither, she thought, could the rest of the crew of the Chrysanthemum. Phym was just too precious.

“He’ll be back later.” Claire says. “In the meantime, why don’t we do something fun?”

“Something fun?” Phym asked, tilting her head in curiosity. “Like what?”

_ This child is too adorable.  _ “Back when I was a kid, my father told me about a really fun holiday.”

“A holiday?” Phym asks. “You mean like April Fools? That was fun, but I didn’t really understand what was going on…”

To be honest, Claire hadn’t quite understood that herself. “It’s something like that.” She replied. “This holiday is called Easter. It used to be a religious holiday, but after the aragami appeared in the Great Collapse, a lot of knowledge was lost. Unfortunately, the true history of many holidays that existed in the world was also lost. We still celebrated it, though. On Easter, there’s a whole ton of fun things, the main event being the egg hunt.”

“Egg hunt?” Phym asks, perking up. 

“Yep. Someone hides fake eggs full of candy around a certain area, and then everyone goes out and looks for them. Then everyone enjoys the candy, spends the day with one another… sometimes we used to color real eggs, but we don’t have the materials for that. Oh, there’s also the famous Easter Feast.”

Phym’s eyes were glowing, and Claire could swear she saw a trail of drool on the girl’s mouth. “A feast? What kind?”

“Hmm… I’m not sure, but because of the rationing since our resupply date was pushed back, we probably shouldn’t have a big feast now.” 

“Oh…” That look of disappointment hurts the soul, but Claire promises herself she’ll make it up to Phym by cooking her a nice easter feast as soon as they’re back at the port.

In other news, she now has to go find the eggs before she forgets where they are…

Or…

“Phym, would you like to do an egg hunt?”

“Mhm!” She nodded eagerly. “Where is the area?”

“I hid them around the lower two decks,” Claire says. “Oh, but first, do you still have any of the baskets we gave you for snacks? You might want one of those to put the eggs in.”

“I’ll go get it!” Phym cheers, sounding ecstatic as she dashes off. 

The initial intent was to have one of the others locate one of the eggs she’d hidden and trigger a shipwide search for them, but considering how busy everyone was, it wouldn’t happen that way. It looked like Phym’s already formidable supply of snacks was about to grow even more…

_ Oh well, I know at least Luca would have given her his share anyways. _

She heads down off of the bridge after Phym, having to call the elevator again. Her eyes stray to the mission console, where Amy and Ricardo are hard at work.

_ I feel bad doing all this without them, but… I feel like Phym needs her time to play and relax too. For a kid her age, humanoid aragami or not, she spends far too much time on the field whether we want her there or not. _

When she arrives, Phym is already darting down the hall, arms outstretched like an airplane with her basket dangling on one, six of the painfully handcrafted origami eggs carefully placed inside. “Claire, Claire, look! I already found five of them!”

She smiles brightly, heart lifting at the sight of the cheerful child before her. “That’s amazing, Phym!”

“How many did you hide?” Phym asks curiously.

“I hid thirty six of them.” The eggs were hard to fold, and it was hard to get enough candy for them anyways. She’d managed to buy some, but since candies had to be handmade most of the time she’d had to suffer through the ordeal of gathering ingredients to make the rest herself. She wasn’t sure how good they were; she hadn’t ever attempted to make some of them before, but she was confident. 

_ I had made just enough eggs so that everyone could have three each. It’s not much, but considering the scarcity of materials it was the best I could do. Well, looks like Phym is getting all of them now. _

She follows behind the excited girl as she searches through the entire ash crawler for them, even daring to move the sleeping cat to get at one of them. The cat, Claire is sure, would have hissed at anyone else for it, but the thing seems to love Phym and just goes back to sleep when this happens.

Soon enough, with Claire following to observe, Phym has clambered up onto a chair in the female dorm to take one down from where it’s taped to the wall. “Thirty-six! I got them all!” She prances around, and then pauses, looking stricken. “But… if I have them all… What about you guys?”

“It’s fine,” Claire says, “I had fun following you around, and it’s no fun if it’s not on Easter.”

Phym shakes her head. “Nope, I can’t just take  _ all  _ of them! Everyone has to have some too! We can all eat them together when they get home!”

_ Phym you’re a tiny angel.  _ “Are you sure?”

“You went through a whole ton of trouble to make all of these for everyone, right?” She asks, tilting her head cutely. “So I’m going to share them! Uh… Thirty six eggs, there’s twelve of us… um… That means three each!” She smiles. “Did I get it right? Did I get it right?”

“You did.” Claire praises her. “Good job, Phym! You’re very good at math!”

“Yay!” The girl spins yet again in happiness. “Hmm… nobody’s back yet, but I can still give them the eggs! Let’s do it like this!” Phym plucks three eggs out of the basket and sets them down on Lulu’s pillow almost as if they’re in a nest. “Claire, can you help?”

“Of course!” She nods, heart thoroughly warmed. Phym holds up her basket, and Claire plucks three eggs out of it, setting them on Amy’s bunk next. The two systematically move through the female dorm, followed swiftly by the male dorm, before they’re left with six remaining eggs.

“Thank you so much for making all these, Claire! I had a lot of fun! Next year, can I help?”

“Of course!” She nods. “Maybe we can even get out hands on food dye next year to make colored eggs.”

“Colored eggs sound yummy…” Phym says, voice seeming very dreamy at the thought. Claire giggles in response.  _ I guess she wouldn’t know that the color won’t change the taste, but I can’t bring myself to ruin it for her. _

“Can we have some of the candy now?” Phym asks. “How do we open the eggs?”

“Like this,” Claire pushes in a few paper tabs, and the blue paper egg in her hand pops open to reveal one of her homemade chocolates. “Just push the tabs in, and it’ll pop right open.”

Phym’s own egg pops open as well, revealing one of the lollipops she’d managed to get out of one of her former colleagues at Gleipnir. “A Lollipop!” Phym cries, seemingly overjoyed. “Yummy! Thank you so much, Claire! You’re the best!” And with a cute ‘nom’, she’s popped the lollipop into her mouth, a bright smile on her face. “Claire, you should have yours too!”

Claire’s smile feels permanently glued to her face this time as she nods. “Of course.”

Popping the chocolate into her mouth, she finds that it’s not the best she’s ever had, but it’s also good anyways.  _ Maybe by next year I’ll have the recipe down. I feel like we’ll have plenty of holidays to come, so I’ll be sure to get in plenty of practice. _

“Happy Easter, Phym.”

“Happy Easter, Claire!”

O

Later, the rest of the crew will come back from their respective jobs, all exhausted out of their minds, only to find three strange eggs sitting on their pillows innocently as if they’d always been there, along with a hand-written card from Phym with the words  _ Happy Easter  _ scrawled on it.

Perhaps none of them will know exactly what Easter is, but the sentiment will remain. 

They’ll be sure to ask her tomorrow, when the contentedly sleeping girl wakes up in the morning.


End file.
